Iran Journal of Nursing

  Background & Aim : Nurses with the nature of their own career and profession confronting with many issues and tension in their work environment and different work shifts in day and night time make them susceptible to sleep disorders, particularly where the majority of nurses are females who have the responsibilities of caring of their families and other social and professional roles which limits the period of their sleep time. Therefore, this study is conducted with the purpose of comparison of sleep quality in two groups of nurses with and without rotation work shift hours.

  Material & Method : This study was a descriptive comparative desing with the sample size of 520 nurses that were selected with the stratified sampling method who have been working in different work shift hours in teaching hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences. The data collection instrument was Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index(PSQI).

  Results : The findings showed that %69.6 of the subjects had a good quality of sleep and the remainder (% 30.4) had a bad sleep quality. About % 56.2 of the subjects with the rotation work shift had a good sleep quality and %43.8 had a bad sleep quality. The result of Chi-Square test showed that there is a significant difference between sleep quality among nurses with fixed and unfixed work shift hours. In other words, the nurses without rotation work shifts had better sleep quality than the nurses with rotation work shifts.

  Conclusion : Proper and efficient management of nursing work settings and accurate planning in work shifts are suggested to reduce nurses' sleep disorders. Improving sleep quality in nurses could increase their general health and ultimately promote the quality of caring in patients.